


Ironic

by argle_fraster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode: s15e18 Despair, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair, The Author Regrets Nothing, practicing dean's voice again, that good koosh angst makes catharsis sweeter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27483628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: He could hear a pin drop against the cement floor. He doesn't, but his mind conjures one anyway, desperate to be anywhere else. To hear anything else. To hear… anything.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	Ironic

**Author's Note:**

> MCD is the obvious one given what episode this is a coda to.

It's so fucking quiet.

It's offensive. How could it be so loud, so overwhelming, a roar of adrenaline and realization and dread and then just suddenly... stop? He could hear a pin drop against the cement floor. He doesn't, but his mind conjures one anyway, desperate to be anywhere else. To hear anything else. To hear… anything.

The Empty left behind nothingness, true to its name, and without Billie's advancing presence, the fire in his blood is slowly leaking. He clings to the remainder of the adrenaline before it leaves him bereft, because he can't stand to be filled with the grief rushing in to take its place.

Grief?

Christ, his whole chest hurts. Remnants of Billie's cataclysmic heart-rending or— 

Remorse.

Guilt.

God, he's gotten so fucking acquainted with those emotions over the years. The only true bedfellows he could count on. But he'd accepted, almost welcomed the end, and it passed him by. It passed him by only to leave behind this god awful silence that's filled with all the words he could never get to trip past his teeth.

Fuck, _fuck_. How did it all come to this?

There's nothing. No pin dropping. No boots pounding on the ground. No— 

Nothing.

He wheezes because it hurts to breathe. A physical ache; that's the grief he remembers. That's sleepless nights imagining fire on the ceiling of Sam's nursery, of watching his brothers topple into the Pit, of Bobby's resigned face at the end of things. A thousand people he couldn't save. A thousand people he never will.

Only one of them wears a familiar face.

_He died for you_ , except it gets twisted like everything else does, mutated into something so much worse. _He died because of you._

Does it matter? He died.

Dean's legs have gone numb. Hours might have passed while he sat on the floor, days maybe. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip and tastes long-dried salt. Even his eyes have quit, worn out, exhausted in ways he can't possibly put a name to. How many times. How many times will he have to feel like this?

None, his mind whispers. Because he's dead. Dead-dead, this time. No cosmic take-backs. No snap of all-powerful fingers.

His phone vibrates on the floor. Christ, he has so many missed calls. The ringing should reassure him, because Sam's still out there. Sam isn't gone, dead-gone, erased into nothingness— 

Breathe. He's forgotten again, and when he sucks in another lungful, it burns from the inside out.

Fuck.

He can't do this again. Could barely do it last time, could barely get out of bed in the morning. Fuck. He claws at his hair just to hear something, even if it's the dull swish of his fingers through his hair.

Something clanks. A pin? Certainly not Billie, come to claim her prize. Not Chuck.

Dean's head falls back against the wall. It hurts, and he loves it. Anything to numb the real trauma inside. That part throbs, twists, pulls. If there was anything in his stomach, it'd have been on the floor by now.

The door cracks open. “Dean?”

He can't answer. Swallows, but his throat has closed dry and swollen. Sam's boots echo against the floor as he takes the room in those gigantic strides.

“Dean?”

He stops a few feet in front of Dean's location. Are there any clues left behind as to what happened, what went down? How the Earth wobbled and spun and fell, never to be righted again? Is there even an Earth left anymore?

Not for Dean, there isn't.

“Everyone's gone,” Sam says. His voice's hoarse. “What happened? Billie?”

Dean has to answer, because if he doesn't, Sam will say his name, and if Dean hears it, he's going to die. His chest will explode. He'll litter the floor in a coating of blood and dust, useless, spent— broken.

The wall behind him makes no noise. He's afraid to move. The spell will break, and it will all be real.

Can't find the words. Can't get his tongue to move.

“Dean, where's Cas?”

_Fuck._

“Don't,” Dean says, but it's so garbled he isn't sure Sam understands. Oh, God, he can't die, even with all the pain ripping through his chest, his ribcage splitting wide to retch out his heart, because there's no Death there to reap him beyond. Ironic. So fucking ironic.

He'll have to live with this. 

Sam crouches down, coming into view. “Dean...”

Dean can't answer. Can't find any words. Cas stole them all, whispered them into being, and now Dean's lost without any, because the only ones that mattered have disappeared. Faded.

“Sammy,” he finally chokes out.

Sam seems to understand, or at least, Dean thinks he does. He shifts. Speaks softer. “Cas?”

“Gone.”

Like the wind. Like the black shadow of his wings once burnt into the dirt. Cas took his love and he fled with it, leaving the gaping wound behind.

Dean's never loved anyone so fiercely or hated anyone so vehemently before in his life.

He sucks in another shuddering breath. “Gone.”

And that's the truth. The end. The reality. The final page in the death book of Dean's heart. Dean tries to find his old emotions inside, but there's nothing. No anger. No rage.

Empty.

He spits out a bone-splintering sob as Sam's hand closes down around his shoulder, anchoring him in place.

Empty.

Fucking ironic.

Chuck always had loved a good twist.


End file.
